As one might expect—since my degree is in computer science—one of the minor areas (sub-themes, if you will) that I touch on occasionally in the development of the Shine Cycle, my fantasy series-in-preparation, is alternate-universe computing. I like to speculate as to how computers and the ecosystem of ideas around them might develop if a few dozen people from our generation, including a handful with some trained insight into the inner workings of the technology, get dropped into a culture for whom “the Internet” was something to read about in yearly diplomatic or intelligence briefings, if that. And how that development would change symbiotically with the use of applied metaphysics.

But I’ll write more about that later. Today I’d like to talk about how, for the purposes of that part of the Shine Cycle which are set in our own future, I project computing will develop in our world over the next several centuries, and what sort of impact it will have. Continue reading →

While most of the Shine Cycle, my fantasy series-in-preparation, takes place in an imagined universe with its own history, and a few other “pocket universes” with their own histories, there are a couple of places in the story where our universe, and in particular Earth, become centrally involved. Continue reading →